Electrospun polyurethane nanofibres having shape memory effect

Nanofibres having shape memory effect (SME) were successfully spun from shape memory polyurethanes solution by electrospinning method in this experiment. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images showed that the resulted nanofibres had ultrafine diameter in a range of 50 to 700 nm. Uniform nanofibres could be prepared by adjusting applied voltage, concentration and feeding rate. Especially, the concentration played a key role in controlling its diameters. In addition, the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) results indicated that the obtained nanofibres would satisfy the structure requirement of segmented polymer having SME. Finally, the cyclic tensile test gave a direct proof that the resulted nanofibres showed good SME: 98% shape recovery and 80% shape fixity can be obtained after several cyclic times. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.